A correct description of active sites is the precondition towards reaction mechanism study and catalyst screening. In many cases, high-symmetry and ideally ordered crystalline surfaces are used to represent the reactive sites. However, reaction-induced surface segregation and restructuring weaken the rationality of simply employing the suggested most stable surfaces. This paper describes an est...

The search for efficient nontoxic catalysts able to perform industrial hydrogenations is a topic of interest, transversal to many catalytic processes. This communication describes a mechanistic phenomenon of activation and spillover of hydrogen for remarkable selectivity of semi‐hydrogenation of acetylene over sub‐1 nm Pd nanoclusters confined within sodalite (SOD) zeolite (Pd@SOD). Specifica...

​Electrocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2ER) to reusable carbon resources is a significant step to balance the carbon cycle. This Communication describes a seed-mediated growth method to synthesize ultrathin Pd–Au alloy nanoshells with controllable alloying degree on Pd nanocubes. Specifically, Pd@Pd3Au7 nanocrystals (NCs) show superior CO2ER performance, with a 94% CO faraday effici...

​Catalytic reforming provides a practical technique for on-board hydrogen production in fuel cell applications. The high energy density, easy transportation and non-toxicity of biomass-derived dimethyl ether (bio-DME) offer potential to replace methanol for on-board steam reforming (SR). Presently, the reaction mechanism over conventional Cu-based SR catalysts remains elusive, limiting the rat...

The role of surface hydroxyls is significant for understanding catalytic performance of metallic oxides for CO2 electroreduction reaction (CO2ER). This Communication describes, employing SnOx as a model system, how to moderate coverage of hydroxyl to derive a stable Sn branches catalyst for CO2ER with a 93.1% Faradaic efficiency (FE) of carbonaceous products. With use of in situ attenuated tota...

On the theme of inorganic materials, Editors of Chemical Science highlighted 10 outstanding contributions published on this topic. Wanyu’s work on “Achieving Convenient Tandem of CO2Electroreduction and Photovoltage Using Potential-Independent Disordered Ag Nanoparticles.” has been selected for this collection. Congrats!

CH3OH production from photocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (PCRR) represents a promising route for the clean utilization of renewable resources, but serious charge recombination, unsatisfied stability and poor selectivity limit its practical application. This paper describes the design and fabrication of 0D/2D materials with polymeric C3N4 nanosheets and CdSe quantum dots (QDs) to enhance the ...

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) CO2 reduction reaction (CRR) in aqueous medium is among the most promising methods to produce renewable fuel with solar and water as the energy and electron source. But the high negative bias remains a prerequisite to achieve an appreciable conversion at present due to the large overpotential of CO2 reduction. This communication describes PEC CRR with low onset potent...

Artificial photosynthesis can store solar energy and reduce CO2 into fuels to potentially alleviate global warming and energy crisis. Compared to gas products, it remains a grand challenge to tune the product distribution of artificial photosynthesis to liquid fuels, such as CH3OH, that are suitable for storage and transport. This paper describes the introduction of metallic Cu nanoparticles (N...

Due to the existence of scaling properties of adsorption energies on transition metal surfaces, the enhancement of the catalytic activity is frequently accompanied by side reactions leading to a reduction in selectivity for the target product. Herein, by systematically screening Pt alloy materials using density functional theory calculations, we developed an approach to breaking the scaling rel...

Electro-reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) is a promising way to curb the excessive CO2 emission and produce value-added products. Gold-copper (AuCu) alloys are known to exhibit eminent CO production performance towards CO2ER. However, it still remains a grand challenge to balance *COOH and *CO bonding and to further descend CO onset potential. This paper describes the construction of Cu vacanci...

Water splits into hydrogen and oxygen electrochemically is one of the most promising strategies for the utilization and storage of solar energy. However, oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with sluggish kinetics hinders its larger-scale application. NiFe-based catalysts are one of the most efficient oxygen evolution catalysts (OECs). High-valence Ni is considered as active site or conductive frame...

Electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) to value-added products is a promising way to solve CO2 emission problems. Thanks to the eminent conductivity and proper adsorption to intermediates, palladium has become a promising candidate for CO2 electroreduction (CO2ER). However, Pd-based nanocatalysts generally need a large overpotential to overcome energy barriers in generating highly s...

Progress in heterogeneous catalysis is often hampered by the difficulties of constructing active architecture and understanding reaction mechanism at molecular level due to the structural complexity of practical catalysts, in particular for multicomponent catalysts. Although surface science experiment and theoretical simulation help understand the detailed reaction mechanisms over model systems...

Cocatalysts on the outside and inside of hollow spheres trigger photocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction to syngas‘Unlike previous ones, our cocatalyst structure is completely separated by a TiO2 shell, enabling electrons and holes generated by TiO2 to flow in opposite directions, which greatly supresses charge carrier recombination,’ Gong tells Chemistry World. Irradiation by solar light caus...

Photocatalytic CO2 reduction represents a sustainable route to generate syngas (the mixture of CO and H2 ), which is a key feedstock to produce liquid fuels in industry. Yet this reaction typically suffers from two limitations: unsuitable CO/H2 ratio and serious charge recombination. This paper describes the production of syngas from photocatalytic CO2 reduction with tunable CO/H2 ratio via adj...

The mixed-metal oxides are one of the most frequently used catalysts in chemical industry, because the superior catalytic reactivity can be achieved by taking advantage of the synergetic effects of their parent oxides. However, the interfacial electronic interactions between metal oxides remains unclear due to their structural complexity. This paper describes the modulation of catalytic perform...

Mixed-metal oxides are one of the most frequently used catalysts in chemical industry, because the superior catalytic reactivity can be achieved by taking advantage of the synergetic effects of their parent oxides. However, the interfacial electronic interactions between metal oxides remain unclear, because of their structural complexity. This paper describes the modulation of catalytic perform...

​CO2 reduction in aqueous solutions is an attractive strategy for carbon capture and utilization. Cuprous oxide (Cu2O) is a promising catalyst for CO2 reduction as it can not only convert CO2 into valuable hydrocarbons but also suppress the side H2 evolution reaction (HER). However, the nature of the active sites is still under debate due to the complex surface structure of Cu2O under reducing...

Chalcopyrite thin film absorbers such as Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) exhibit excellent solar energy conversion efficiency, particularly when coupled with CdS to form an excellent p-n junction. An increasing number of investigations have focused on adopting protective layers and cocatalysts for chalcopyrite/CdS to improve its stability and surface reaction kinetics. However, satisfactory performance has...